Heroes Every Child Should Know eBook

that he would do good service to the Christian cause,
by assisting him to drive back the Saracens of Granada
before proceeding on his voyage to Jerusalem.
Lord Douglas and his followers went accordingly to
a great battle against Osmyn, and had little difficulty
in defeating the Saracens. But being ignorant
of the mode of fighting among the cavalry of the East,
the Scots pursued the chase too far, and the Moors,
when they saw them scattered and separated from each
other, turned suddenly back, with a loud cry of Allah
ILLAH Allah, which is their shout of battle,
and surrounded such of the Scottish knights and squires
as were dispersed from each other.

In this new skirmish, Douglas saw Sir William St.
Clair of Roslyn fighting desperately, surrounded by
many Moors, who were having at him with their sabres.
“Yonder worthy knight will be slain,” Douglas
said, “unless he have instant help.”
With that he galloped to his rescue, but presently
was himself also surrounded by many Moors. When
he found the enemy press so thick round him, as to
leave him no chance of escaping, the Earl took from
his neck the Bruce’s heart, and speaking to
it, as he would have done to the King, had he been
alive—­“Pass first in fight,”
he said, “as thou wert wont to do, and Douglas
will follow thee, or die.”

He then threw the King’s heart among the enemy,
and rushing forward to the place where it fell, was
there slain. His body was found lying above the
silver case, as if it had been his last object to
defend the Bruce’s heart.

Such of the Scottish knights as remained alive returned
to their own country. They brought back the heart
of the Bruce, and the bones of the good Lord James.
The Bruce’s heart was buried below the high
altar in Melrose Abbey. As for his body, it was
laid in the sepulchre in the midst of the church of
Dunfermline, under a marble stone. The church
afterward becoming ruinous, and the roof falling down
with age, the monument was broken to pieces, and nobody
could tell where it stood. But when they were
repairing the church at Dunfermline, and removing
the rubbish, lo! they found fragments of the marble
tomb of Robert Bruce. Then they began to dig farther,
thinking to discover the body of this celebrated monarch;
and at length they came to the skeleton of a tall
man, and they knew it must be that of King Robert,
both as he was known to have been buried in a winding
sheet of cloth of gold, of which many fragments were
found about this skeleton, and also because the breastbone
appeared to have been sawed through, in order to take
the heart. A new tomb was prepared into which
the bones were laid with profound respect.

CHAPTER XVII

GEORGE WASHINGTON

On the 4th of March, 1797, Washington went to the
inauguration of his successor as President of the
United States. The Federal Government was sitting
in Philadelphia at that time and Congress held sessions
in the courthouse on the corner of Sixth and Chestnut
Streets.